Zhang Gou stayed in Hecheng with Han Caizhi and Zhu Ai, and for three days in a row, he was not summoned by Lin Lian.

In the past three days, Chen Kuili, Chen Yan and others have also been summoned to Hecheng one after another, and there are almost more than 30 people, all of whom are from the labor camp. In addition to Zhu Ai and other engineering officials, there are more students from the Hecheng War Training Academy.

On the fourth day, a large number of cadet officers arrived from other places. Everyone lived together, and it was lively, and it was not difficult to know that the farthest was from Shanyang County, Huai'an Prefecture, and there were also cadet officers from Daheng Island.

At present, there are primary combat training schools in Hecheng, Chongcheng, Shanyang, and Dahengdao, and the scale of Hecheng is the largest, and 400 people are selected from the workers' camp for short-term study at a time, and the scale of the first phase of the primary combat training schools in Chongcheng, Shanyang, and Dahengdao is about 100 people.

Although there was no clear notice, so many cadet officers of the same nature gathered together, and soon everyone confirmed that their group of more than 100 people was selected as the best of the primary combat training academy.

In terms of proportion, the combat training schools in Chongcheng, Shanyang, and Dahengdao selected the best ones this time to achieve the ratio of choosing one out of five, and Hecheng only chose one out of fifteen.

This is not to blame the Huaidong Military Division for discriminating against most of the cadet officers in Hecheng who came from the Wandering People's Army, like Zhang Gou and others, and the time spent on intensive study only adds up to two months, and the selection ratio is low, which is also normal.

The cadet officers selected from Chongcheng, Shanyang, and Dahengdao were themselves from the Huaidong Army, and they had gone through at least two or even three periods of intensive study, with a maximum period of half a year. At least in terms of tactical learning, they have a more solid foundation than the cadet officers of the Hecheng Combat Training School.

There are also a considerable number of people, such as Zhang Jiheng and others, who have already served in the army as sentry generals, deputy sentry generals, and even battalion generals and battalion sentry officers with real power and military positions, and they have also been ordered to gather in Hecheng.

The official order has not been issued, Lin Jian also first summoned the engineering officials to go to Jianling to inspect first, and Zhu Ai also followed to Jianling first, Zhang Gou has never been clear about the purpose of their group of people to assemble, suspecting that the Huaidong Army will expand the army again.

By 26 April, more than 140 middle- and high-ranking officers had assembled at Hecheng. Based on the most basic establishment of the main and deputy posts, this group of officers will be newly organized into at least 20 battalions and 60 posts with a total of 12,000 soldiers and horses.

Zhang Gou initially thought that Lin Jian had decided to fight the luxury family, and many officers also thought so. When everyone gathered together to study and sum up the gains and losses of the first battle of Xinoyuan, some people first discussed the plan of attacking Mingzhou Mansion from the Shengsi defense line.

Lin Jian went to Jianling, Yandu and other places in the north to inspect, Qin Chengzu sat in Hecheng, and the gathering of officers was headed by Han Caizhi and Zhang Jiheng.

Both of them had access to the core secrets of the Huaidong Military Division, and soon everyone knew the real reason for the large-scale assembly of middle and high-ranking officers. Military commanders will formally add the post of military commander to the brigade, battalion, and sentry corps, and these officers will be incorporated into the army at all levels as the first batch of military commanders after a short period of study.

On April 28, Lin Liancai returned to Hecheng from Yandu and officially signed the order for the establishment of the military commander cadet corps.

The cadet team is composed of sentinels, headed by Qin Chengzu, the right Sima of the military division, Han Caizhi, Zhang Jiheng, and Zhang Gou are the deputy sentinels of the cadet team, and more than 140 people are organized into eight study groups, with Chen Yan, Chen Kuili and others as the captains of the cadet team.

Zhang Jiheng, as the first general of the Eastern Expedition to Xiyeyuan, was himself a military attache at the level of battalion commander, and it was normal for him to be transferred in as the deputy sentry general of the cadet team.

Han Caizhi is a disciple of Shanglinli, and in the first battle of Huaisi, the exile army was able to surrender to Huaidong on a large scale, and he made great contributions. Han Caizhi was very valued in the labor camp, and it is not surprising that he was assigned to the army this time and was reused.

After the real order was issued, what made Zhang Gou wonder was why he was mentioned in the same important position as Zhang Jiheng and Han Caizhi in the cadet team?

The Huaidong military system is very different from the military system of the current world, and the military commander is also newly established, not to mention Zhang Gou, even Han Caizhi and Zhang Jiheng are not very clear about what the military commander is responsible for in the army.

On the night of the 28th, Zhang Gou went to see Lin Tie with Han Caizhi and Zhang Jiheng with a nervous mood.

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When he entered, Lin Jian was looking to discuss things with Sun Jingtang, Wang Chengfu, and Chen Lei, and Zhu Ai and others were also present.

The Hanhai seawall in the Jiangmen and Hecheng sections has been preliminarily completed, and the Gongyi Battalion will be moved north on a large scale, and will be responsible for the construction of the Hanhai seawall in the middle and northern sections. However, in addition to Hecheng and Jiangmen, the southern section will be officially set up on the basis of the camps of the previous three sections.

The construction of the follow-up post road and windbreak forest of the southern section of the seawall will be the responsibility of Tunzhai. The more important responsibility of the tunzhai is to carry out large-scale tuntian in the hinterland of the Hecheng grassland and resettle the families of as many as 90,000 workers and battalion generals.

Zhu Ai, an industrial official, and three others were promoted to the head of the tun, and they were under the rule of the two inspection divisions of Hecheng and Jiangmen.

Zhang Gou, Han Caizhi, and Zhang Jiheng had to wait for Qin Chengzu to come over, and they waited in the side hall first, and they could vaguely hear the middle of the room talking about the pasture planting.

Zhu Ai and the other three new tun chiefs retired first, and they had to wait for Wang Chengfu and Chen Lei to finish talking before going back together.

Zhang Gou, Han Caizhi and Zhu Ai were also familiar with each other, so they asked about the tun planting, and only then did they know that Lin Jian made this trip to the north, and the plan was finally determined: the three tunzhai plus Hecheng and Jiangmen will reclaim 600,000 mu of grain land in two years, including the families of the generals of the workers' camp, and a total of 40,000 Dingkou households will be resettled.

"There is no opinion on the two Huai Salt Iron Divisions?" Han Caizhi asked, "Hecheng has cultivated 600,000 mu of grain land in two years, and almost half of the land has to be reclaimed. Besides, with so many manpower used to reclaim grain fields and occupy a large amount of land, how can we ensure the supply of 8 million bales of forage to Sheyang and Dafeng salt areas every year? ”

Zhang Gou thought to himself that Lin Jian had just returned to Chongzhou, and the people did not go back to Chongcheng, so he directly took everyone to the north, probably to coordinate with the officials of the Lianghuai Salt and Iron Division.

Large-scale reclamation will inevitably affect the supply of forage.

"Sheyang and Dafeng Salt Fields will try to change the cooking method to the drying method to save the use of forage," Zhu Ai followed the north this time, knowing the coordination between the Huaidong Military Division and the two Huai Salt and Iron Divisions, this kind of thing is naturally confidential, but Han Caizhi, Zhang Gou, and Zhang Jiheng have been ordered, and it has been made clear that they are senior generals at the level of deputy brigade commander of the Huaidong Military Division, and there is no need to hide what Zhu Ai can know, and there is no need to hide it from them, "The loss of official salt production caused by these two salt farms is responsible for purchasing sea salt from the Haidong region to make up for it." This year, 30,000 stone sea salt will be directly subsidized...... The salt and iron division buys only 120,000 stone of official salt from these two salt farms every year, and we subsidize a quarter of the amount at once, and they still have less trouble collecting and transporting, so what else can they not be satisfied with? ”

"This is also true, even if the forage from the Hecheng grassland is counted, it can only produce 80,000 stone salt at most by the cooking method, and the officials of the two salt farms don't know how much silver they can get from it." Han Caizhi said with emotion.

The official salt sales price is extremely high, mainly because the salt tax accounts for eight or nine out of ten, and the Salt and Iron Division really buys 30,000 stone of salt from the salt households, and the cost is only 30,000 or 40,000 taels of silver. Huaidong purchased sea salt from the Haidong region to supplement the salt and iron division, and the cost would not exceed 50,000 taels of silver. Even if it is doubled, it will be 100,000 taels of silver.

And the entire Hecheng grassland, within the seawall, measured the land area of more than 7,000 square miles.

Integrate and adjust with Chongzhou, and the three counties can be separated. Even though the cost of reclamation in the early stage was huge, based on the population density of Chongzhou, two more counties could be placed to almost 100,000 households, which is definitely not something that can be measured by investing an extra 100,000 taels of silver every year.

"It's time to close the door next, right?" Zhang Gou asked.

"I'm afraid not, depending on what the adults mean, why will we have to wait until the seawall is completed," Zhu Ai said, "To be able to negotiate a deal with the two salt factory supervisors is also to threaten each other with a mouth." Now that it has been negotiated, nothing will change for the time being. ”

Zhu Ai and the other three tun chiefs have worked with Han Caizhi and Zhang Gou for half a year, and they are very familiar with each other and often discuss these issues.

Zhang Gou's "closing the mouth" is to use the blockade formed by the Hanhai Seawall and the Huaidong Inspection Division to severely crack down on the flow of illicit salt from the two Huaiyan areas.

This will enable the Huaidong Military Division to gain more benefits from the "salt, silver, and grain protection."

It was only after Zhang Gou arrived in Chongzhou that he began to think about these deep-seated issues. Han Caizhi is also at the request of Lin Bin, in order to meet the requirements of a qualified senior general, to study political affairs seriously and systematically.

In contrast, Zhu Ai showed more of his talent in this area. In fact, Zhu Ai's level is much lower than that of Han Caizhi and Zhang Gou, and the secrets he has access to are limited, but in Huaidong political affairs, Han Caizhi and Zhang Gou have to ask Zhu Ai for advice.

Han Caizhi asked: "Now the official salt output in the Lianghuai Salt District can be 250,000 stone per year, how much can it increase if the mouth is tightened?" ”

"It won't be less than that." Zhu Ai stretched out four fingers and said, "I don't estimate that it will be lower than that." ”

"So tall?" Han Caizhi said in surprise.

"After the official salt is added to the salt tax, it should not be less than 200 yuan per catty, and the price of Huaidong salt is only about 100 yuan per year. Salt merchants secretly add at least double the amount of private salt for discounting, so as not to lose money. Do you think that those salt merchants risked cutting off their heads because of their good intentions to make salt affordable for the people, and took illicit salt to come in and wash it? Zhu Ai smiled and asked, "When the Ma family was in the law, there were thousands of hectares of fertile land, where did it come from?" ”

Han Caizhi smiled, when the Huaidong Army attacked the Ma family, there were six or seven hundred thousand taels of real money before and after, and there were countless fertile fields and villages, and they didn't profit from private salt?

The rest is not clear, Han Caizhi has calculated the accounts of the workers' camp.

According to the conversion of 20,000 soldiers, the Huaidong Army can obtain an additional 1,200 stone of salt from the Huaidong Army Commander controlled by Liu Tingzhou every year, but this is far from enough for the Huaidong Military Division.

Based on the calculation of 60,000 soldiers and 5,000 head of cattle in the labor camp, 6,000 stone will be used up for salt alone every year. If you don't use private salt, the 6,000 stone salt is 120,000 taels of silver according to the official price.

Naturally, the Huaidong Military Division will not spend money on this, and has its own salt drying fields on Changshan Island and Daheng Island. The actual cost of drying salt, compared with the official price, is less than one-twentieth. Han Caizhi, Zhang Gou and others all know this.

However, the real private salt number of the Lianghuai Salt Farm is not the number Zhu Ai said, Han Caizhi and Zhang Gou are not sure, after all, political affairs are not their specialty.

If this is really the number, if this side can firmly control the outflow of private salt from the two Huai salt areas, it is possible to raise 100,000 elite soldiers.

Han Caizhi, Zhang Gou and Zhu Ai were talking, and Qin Chengzu walked in. Qin Chengzu came, and Lin Jian would not let Qin Chengzu wait there, so he called them in together to talk about the establishment of military commanders.